Absolute Zero
by Shade's Ninde
Summary: When the time comes to pull the plug on the Light's plans, Dick enlists a reluctant Roy to help save Kaldur's life, but yesterday's bitterness has a way of ruining today's victory. T for language and violence. Roughly canon-compliant.
1. One

I don't own Young Justice.

* * *

**_Reacclimation_**

* * *

Roy has just picked up Lian from daycare on the way home from work – security coordinator at a local bank – when right as he's buckling her into her car seat, his cell phone rings.

Thing is, his cell phone isn't _on. _

"Hello?" he answers suspiciously, tucking it between his shoulder and his ear so he can finish tethering his daughter in. "Who is this?"

"It's Nightwing," responds the caller. "It's an emergency."

(Well that solves the mystery, at least – the bastard hacked his phone.)

"So deal with it," Roy snaps. He adjusts the car seat straps and ruffles Lian's hair, taking the phone back into his hand and straightening out. "Or get the League. You know I don't do that sh – stuff anymore."

He glances at Lian to see if she noticed his slip-up, but she's contentedly flipping through the book the daycare lady gave her, something about a lost cat finding its way home. She didn't hear.

"The League's busy," Nightwing says. "So's the team. Turn on the news if you're skeptical – things are going down out there, things that've been years in the making. We've deployed everyone we've got and we're still short, but there's a different mission left, an important one, and I need someone to back me up."

"I have a family now," says Roy. "Get West to do it."

"Wally's already in the field," Nightwing says impatiently. "I told you everyone's busy. Roy, listen to me. It's Kaldur."

"Fuck you," Roy barks, then quickly shuts the car door, as if Lian will un-hear the word that way. She gives him a curious look through the glass and he turns away, pressing his back to the door, so she can't read his lips, either. "Don't you dare try and use him to drag me into this. I am _not _helping you take him down."

"I'm not asking you to," says Nightwing. "I'm asking you to help me save his life. I don't have time to explain the details right now, but it boils down to this – he's on our side, he's been on our side this whole time, and if you don't suit up and get out here, he's going to be dead before the day is over."

"He's – what?" Roy stutters. Bullshit. He's seen the footage. There's no way that's true. "I'm telling you, If you're fucking with me, I swear I'll - "

" – I'm not," says Nightwing flatly. "Please, Roy. I can't do this by myself. You're all we've got. All _he's _got. I wouldn't be asking you under any other circumstances. "

Silence on the line. Roy stares at the façade of the day care center, watches the mothers who've come to pick up their children, soaks in the sounds of the parking lot, glances through the car window at his own daughter with her pigtails and her car seat and her book about the lost cat. Finally, he closes his fists and speaks again, voice low.

"Let me find Lian a babysitter."

* * *

The sub is a wreck; the entire pier is in flames. Roy hangs back a moment to pick off a few of the helmeted soldiers rushing their way, clearing the path for Nightwing, who's rushing in in front of him, escrima sticks in hand. It's been over a year since he last did this, and even though he's stayed in shape and done some target practice here and there, the instincts are rusty – the adrenaline rushing through his system is more fear than excitement, and he still doesn't get what's going on in the big picture.

On the other hand, it might be better if he doesn't think too hard about it. If he's on board with the basic concept, it's that for the last three years – the three years that saw him spiral out of control, marry a villain, father a daughter he couldn't take care of, nearly self-destruct a hundred different ways – the man he once trusted more than anyone in the world has been playing pawn in one of Nightwing's elaborate espionage games, and couldn't be bothered to _tell him. _

Roy reaches for a particular arrow in his quiver, feeling the configuration notches beneath his fingertips, and aims for the sky – flare arrow, proven effective against Manta's men by Artemis.

_Artemis._ Kaldur _killed _Artemis. The thought strikes Roy as he ignites the flare and fires, sending a blinding light arcing across the battlefield. Left and right, Manta's men cry out, fall to their knees, stumble blindly, and Roy can't help but think that he feels just as disoriented as them right now, albeit in a less physical way.

Nightwing presses their advantage with alarming speed and precision. In moments, the docks are nearly clear, and absent the sound of firing lasers the roar of the flames seems to grow yet louder. Roy wipes a bead of sweat from his brow and fires off two last arrows, felling the last of the helmeted soldiers as they emerge from the wreckage of the sub and throw themselves for the comparative safety of the burning pier. Whatever happened here, it was devastating.

"This way," Nightwing orders, snapping Roy out of his hesitation. The acrobat is tucking his weapons back onto his belt, making for the half-sunken submarine and the open hatch at its top.

"Are you crazy?" Roy asks as he follows anyway. "That thing is going down in minutes. We go in there, we go with it."

"Aqualad's down there," Nightwing responds, tossing Roy a rebreather as he leaps off the dock and onto the top of the damaged craft. "So's Black Manta."

That seems to be all he needs to say, and he disappears down the hatch without another word, leaving Roy to jump down after him. They land in a metallic hallway, its walls marred with scorch marks and flecks of blood, though whose, it's impossible to tell, and in the quiet of the sub a new sound comes to light, metallic clangs and faint shouts from somewhere deeper within. The two heroes share a look.

"Your mission," says Roy, nocking an arrow to his bow. "You lead."

Nightwing nods and rushes forward, turning down the first inner hallway they come to. Roy isn't sure if the younger hero is familiar with the layout of the ship or if he's guessing randomly, but he doesn't feel like asking so he just follows, his eyes flicking back and forth in search of danger, which is laughable – it's _all _danger. There's water dripping through the ceiling and electricity crackling from gashed-open panels in the walls and fires burning wherever they can find something to burn, and any sane person would have gotten off this ship by now.

Then again, neither heroes nor villains are noted for their sanity.

They round a corner. Manta's men, it seems, have already made their escape – the two heroes encounter no resistance as they hurry through the winding passages of the Manta Sub, sidestepping swinging, severed cables and piles of crackling technological rubble.

Just when Roy opens his mouth to demand some sort of further explanation, there's a ship-shaking crash from somewhere to their right that nearly knocks both of them off their feet. The shouting, which had stopped for the last few minutes, now renews, though the voice is too low and too distorted for Roy to make out anyway words.

"We're close," says Nightwing, pausing to check something on his wrist computer before he takes off down a narrow corridor.

"I hadn't noticed," Roy snaps back.

They ascend a short flight of stairs, turn a corner, and suddenly there's a surge of heat and bright-red light and Roy ducks just in time as a burst of energy sizzles over his head and blows a hole in the wall behind him. By the time he remembers to breathe again, Nightwing is already rolling upright and drawing his escrima sticks, heading for the larger of two black-armored figures in the room – the smaller one is slumped against the far wall, left visor shattered, armored scorched and dented in several places. They're in a command room of some sort. It's full of shattered computer screens and monitor systems that are currently shrieking warnings about the state of the sub.

A shout from Nightwing forces Roy's attention back towards the action. Black Manta, whom he recognizes from news footage and mission reports, has dodged the hero's attempt at a full-frontal attack and is now lifting his arm to fire some sort of laser. Drawing back his bowstring, Roy lets fly with a weighted arrow that knocks the villain's arm back just enough to divert the blast into the ceiling; metal rains down upon them.

"So you brought your friends to die with you," says Manta, his voice a garbled, inhuman boom amidst the other noises of the deteriorating ship. Despite the distortion, Roy can still hear the bitterness in his tone as he continues: "There is some loyalty in the world, after all."

"Dying isn't part of the plan, actually," says Nightwing. He rolls to the side as Manta makes a grab for him, then swipes out a leg in an attempt to trip the larger man, but Manta seems to have anticipated the move and sidesteps cleanly. In the corner, the other armored figure – Roy isn't willing to think of it as Kaldur yet – stirs.

Nocking a shock arrow to his bow, Roy advances on the two fighters. It's been too long since he worked with Nightwing (or anyone else), though, and he can't predict the younger hero's moves well enough to get a clear shot. For his part, Nightwing is dodging nimbly around Manta, landing hits with his escrima sticks that don't seem to be doing much of anything, though Roy imagines the echo inside the helmet must be pretty annoying. It's an unproductive fight. Nightwing is too fast and Black Manta's armor too impenetrable for either one to do any real damage, and all the while the sub groans around them, water now trickling in from the hole in the ceiling.

"Nightwing, move!" Roy barks at last, and when the acrobat flips away obediently, he lets his arrow loose. Manta swats the first one away but Roy is quick to follow up, and the jolt the impact sends through the villain's body makes him jerk and quiver with pain as Nightwing steps in to deliver a stiff kick to his chest. But before it can land, Manta rears back, the red slits of his visor flashing brightly, and Roy throws himself to one side just before the laser blast pierces the air where he was standing a split second earlier. Behind him, an ornate wooden bust bursts into flames.

He rolls upright in time to see Manta hurl Nightwing across the room. The man is inhumanly strong, probably because of the armor; Roy draws and nocks an explosive arrow but loses his chance to shoot it as Manta comes charging at him, rendering the distance between them too narrow for a blast attack. With a grunt, Roy jumps to the side and rolls, but the villain adjusts course in turn, blocking off his escape. Black Manta's arm pulls back and Roy braces himself for a bone-shattering impact that never comes – there's a loud _clang _and Manta staggers to the side, dazed from a blow Roy didn't see. Water showers to the floor around them.

A second blow from behind sends the villain a few stumbling steps forward. It's Nightwing, up again after his throw, capitalizing on Manta's momentary disorientation. Roy follows up with a kick that hurts his foot more than it seems to hurt his opponent, then edges around and away to get in a more reasonable shooting distance. He's just re-drawing his blast arrow when he notices that Kaldur is up – there's blood leaking out of the right boot of his armor and the leg above it is obviously broken, but he's dragged himself upright on a nearby command station and retrieved his waterbearers from the floor, clearly intending to rejoin the fight.

"You should not have come," he says, startling the archer, who somehow hadn't expected him to speak.

Before Roy can respond, though, a stifled cry of pain from Nightwing draws them both back into the fray. Kaldur summons the water coming in from the ceiling and whips it towards his father to knock him away from the acrobat, who executes a quick backwards somersault to clear the way for Roy's incoming explosive arrow. It whistles past Manta and strikes the wall just behind him, but it's close enough: the blast knocks the villain flat and seems to disable some sort of function to his suit, if the erratic flickering of the one-solid red lights on his shoulderplates is any indication.

Rolling upright, Nightwing rejoins Roy and Kaldur on the far side of the room.

"Not to rush things, but the sub isn't going to hold up much longer," he says, pulling up a hologram on his wrist computer. "The sooner we get out of here, the – "

A massive energy blast erupts from Manta's shoulder cannon and obliterates the sensor console in front of them, sending a cloud of heat and debris rushing over their heads. When Roy unfolds himself out of his protective stance, the villain is standing before them once more, the flickering lights on his armor now imposing, even frightening.

"You sent my own flesh and blood to destroy me," he booms, towering over them. The rage in his voice is like a physical force, raw and deep. "Do you really believe I will hesitate to send you to the bottom of the ocean?"

Some part of Roy, the part that has the world's worst comedic timing, wants to point out that they're at a pier, not exactly in the middle of the Pacific, and wish Manta good luck with the whole bottom of the ocean thing. But sixty feet of water is plenty enough to drown in so he keeps his mouth shut.

Beside him, Nightwing takes up a defensive stance; Roy takes the cue and draws his last shock arrow, waiting for Manta to make a move, which the villain does a split second later. It's not the move they're expecting, though. With a jerk of his head, he blasts a ray of energy from his helmet into the row of monitor consoles to his right. They burst into flames, spitting sparks of fire and electricity into the air and creating a wave of heat that washes through the room, and almost instantly, Roy feels himself break out in a hard sweat.

Kaldur lifts his waterbearers and attempts to draw in the water from the ceiling, but there's not enough of it coming in to douse the flames. Furthermore, the effort seems to drain him – Roy can see his arms shaking violently – but there's no time to do anything with that thought because Manta is taking a powerful swing at Nightwing, forcing him to dodge towards the fire instead of away from it, and a new alert from one of the undestroyed monitors is letting them know that heat levels in the fuel compartment have hit hazardous. The whole thing could blow at any second.

"All right, plan B," says Roy, quickly switching out the shock arrow for a double explosive. He aims at Manta, drawing the villain's attention, then swivels quickly to fire it at a wall instead, the wall he's pretty sure is closest to the outside. It's time to blast their way out of here.

The wall explodes in a shower of steel and sparks, but it's not enough. The hull has been built to withstand greater pressure than that. All the same, Roy's move has given Nightwing time to get around to Manta's other side, and now the acrobat lashes out with his wired taser, flinging the two diodes onto the villain's armor and lighting the bastard up. It takes Manta only a second to recover and throw the wires off himself, but his retaliatory laser strike goes exactly where Nightwing seems to have wanted – into the wall Roy just blew half to hell.

For a brief moment, it looks like the hull will hold. Then a single spurt of water begins spraying in, and there's a sort of crumbling sound, and the bay breaks through, water rushing in to consume the fire and rubble and destruction of the command room.

"Fools," Manta spits as the water splashes around his ankles. "If you wish so badly to make this your grave, I will be happy to assist you."

And without another word, he turns, lifting his arm and the laser cannon mounted on it towards Kaldur.

Nightwing's shout of protest is lost in the sound of the ensuing explosion. For a moment, Roy's totally sure that they've come down here for nothing, that Black Manta has just blown his own son to smithereens, but when he lowers the debris-blocking arm from his face, he realizes that Manta fired not directly at Kaldur but at the ceiling above him, bringing whatever was in the room above crashing down.

To be honest, it's not that much better. Kaldur is now trapped under a half-ton of mechanical wreckage, and the water is at their knees and rising fast.

"Rebreather, Red Arrow," Nightwing orders. "Don't put it in yet. Wait for my mark."

Manta is gone, Roy suddenly notices as he hooks his bow onto his shoulder and pulls the rebreather from a pouch on his belt. The monitors are still screaming at them, and suddenly true panic grips his gut – who's going to look after Lian if he dies down here? He shouldn't have come. He doesn't owe Nightwing a damn thing, and he most _certainly _doesn't owe Kaldur, and he's going to drown or get blown to high heaven and Lian's going to end up in fatherless like he was, tossed from house to house to house, all because he –

"Roy!"

Nightwing sounds irate; he'd have to be to drop Roy's real name like that. The archer turns and sees him standing over the pile of rubble under which Kaldur has disappeared, busily hauling pieces off of it and tossing them aside.

"Right," Roy mutters. "Coming."

He tucks his rebreather under his quiver strap and wades over, pushing down the urge to jump ship and save himself. As much as he's afraid to risk leaving Lian without a father, he knows he could never look her in the eye if he left someone to die like this. Crouching beside Kaldur's prone form, he focuses on unearthing the Atlantean, a task made somewhat easier by the water that is now as high as his hips, and soon he and Nightwing have hauled Kaldur upright and braced him against the back wall – he's too heavy to carry, and furthermore, he's unconscious, apparently knocked out by the heat of the now-quelled fires and the impact of the overhead explosion.

"We need to get his armor off!" Nightwing shouts over the roaring water. "We'll never get him out like this!"

Roy nods and reaches for the helmet, which comes off easily enough, probably due to the severe damage it's sustained. Kaldur's head lolls to one side, revealing that the left side of his face is littered with half-sunken shards of his broken visor; blood is trickling steadily down his neck. Nightwing wipes it away from his gills with a grimace that looks almost guilty, as though this is somehow his fault.

Between the two of them they manage to pry the chestpiece open – the mechanism is damaged, making it impossible to remove it cleanly, but their joint strength is enough to wrest it off. The arms go next, but by the time they've slid the gauntlets off Kaldur's hands, the water is up to their necks.

"That's gonna have to do," says Nightwing as he slips his rebreather into his mouth and pulls one of Kaldur's arms over his shoulder. Nodding, Roy copies the motion and they begin to move across the room towards the steadily-widening hole in the opposite wall, their feet barely scraping the ground as the water rises to brush Roy's jawline. They're swimming before long, the water well over their heads and then suddenly the ship gives a horrible lurch and it's clear they've really begun to sink.

Roy shares a look with Nightwing, and the two of them redouble their efforts. Kaldur's body is a dead weight between them, though Roy avoids thinking about how literal that phrase could get in a matter of moments. As they approach the blast hole, the room seems to reach equilibrium with the bay; the strong inward flow abates, and they hurl themselves out the hole in the wall into open water. At their back, the sub sinks rapidly downward.

Kaldur is still far too heavy, though, even armored only from the waist down – Roy's kicking as hard as he possibly can, but with only one arm free and all the extra weight, they're not going anywhere. He turns to Nightwing with panic in his eyes, only to see the acrobat reach down to withdraw something from his belt: his grappling gun.

The relief is short-lived. Below them, the sub strikes the bottom of the pier and explodes on impact. Nightwing's grappling line shoots up slowly, much too slowly, heading for the underside of the dock above them, but Roy can see the fire billowing up below them, knows the water around them will begin to boil at any moment, then suddenly there's a tug from above and they're rushing upwards, Roy swinging his free arm around to grab Nightwing's shoulder and stabilize all three of them.

They hit the bottom of the dock hard, and in the nick of time. Roy can feel the heat washing up over them but it's not painful or lethal and they're in much shallower water now; when they drop down to the dock floor they can simply walk along the bottom, breathing their increasingly shallow air as they drag Kaldur towards the light overhead.

And then suddenly they're breaching, tossing their rebreathers aside, collapsing onto the concrete of the boat ramp they've surfaced next to and gasping for proper air. Kaldur isn't moving but his chest is rising and falling slowly, testifying to the success of their mission – he's alive. They're alive. It's over: mission accomplished.

Roy can't know then just how inaccurate that thought will prove.


	2. Two

Roy fidgets as he sits on the examining table in the Cave's medbay, letting someone he vaguely knows extract a piece of shrapnel from his arm. It's nearly eleven at night and he knows the babysitter is going to kill him, but he doesn't have the money for hospital bills right now, even with Jade's occasional, doubtlessly illegal monetary contributions. Ollie ensured he had a high school diploma but he can't put his real job experience on a résumé ("running around at night in tight pants and shooting things full of arrows"), so his salary isn't particularly impressive, and as it turns out parenting is pretty expensive.

Around the room, several other young heroes are being patched up. Roy recognizes some – there's Nightwing's replacement, the new Robin, whose dislocated shoulder is being tended to by Miss Martian, and that weird kid with the blue armor whose name he learned once but now forgets. There are others, but he doesn't know them; it's been a while. On the whole it looks like it's been a hell of a day for the entire team.

"That should do it," says Mal, setting the needle aside. Roy looks down and sees that the other man has stitched up the gash in his arm. It's not pretty, but it'll do.

"Thanks," he mutters, standing up. He has some other injuries – bruises, burns, maybe a sprained ankle – but he can take care of them at home, and he's had more than enough hero business for the day. He's done what he agreed to do. And yes, maybe he has a few questions about what the hell Kaldur was doing for the last three years, but at the moment he's a little too angry to ask any of them, so he picks up his bow and heads for the exit, fully aware that Superboy is watching him go with a gaze that could buckle metal.

In the hallway outside, Wally is standing with a woman Roy doesn't recognize, an athletic type with long black hair and a weary stance. The speedster straightens up as Roy approaches.

"Hey," he greets quietly. "Good to see you back in the game, man."

"I'm not back in the game," says Roy. He doesn't stop walking towards the zeta-tubes. "This was a one-time deal."

There's an awkward silence, punctuated only by Roy's footsteps.

"Kaldur's in surgery," says the strange woman as he passes by them.

"Good for him," says Roy flatly.

"You aren't sticking around?" Wally asks, clearly trying to keep the surprise out of his voice.

Roy keeps walking.

"Wasn't planning on it, no."

He can feel them staring at his back but he's already pulling out his cell phone, entering the babysitter's number – as soon as he can zeta out of the signal block, he's calling her and offering whatever apology and/or bribe she demands in return for staying with Lian long enough for him to get home. After everything that's happened, he's anxious to see his baby girl, and to forget the sour taste that this impromptu mission has left in his mouth.

Then suddenly a voice rings out from behind him, harsh and angry:

"What the hell is wrong with you, Harper?"

He stops in his tracks. For a moment, he considers ignoring it entirely. He's tired and hurt in more ways than one and he definitely doesn't have to answer to this woman he's just laid eyes on for the first time, but the hostility in her tone has struck a nerve with him, so he turns around to face her, jaw clenched and shoulders tight.

"And just who the hell are you?" he asks.

"Are you blind?" she replies. "It's – "

"Arty," Wally interrupts gently, stepping between them as if he's afraid they'll lunge at each other. "He's not part of the team or the League, Zatanna's spell didn't…"

He trails off as she reaches to her neck and rips away her necklace, tossing it aside impatiently. Before Roy's eyes, black hair fades to blonde, broad shoulders slim ever so slightly, and the woman's face rearranges itself into that of a teammate he's believed dead the last two years. For a moment, he's speechless.

_She was in on it the whole time, _it hits him, though he should have deduced it the moment Nightwing explained their mission. Kaldur didn't really kill her; she faked her own death as part of their grand masquerade, and now it's over so she can take off whatever mask she's been hiding behind. Judging by Wally's composure, he's been in the loop all this time too, and all of a sudden Roy's surprise is overwhelmed by furious bitterness – Kaldur told Artemis, Nightwing, _Wally_, but not _him? _

"Right," he says, turning away to check himself before he can say something regrettable. "Of course."

He moves again to leave.

"You really don't care if he lives or dies?" Artemis demands from behind him.

"He's not going to die," says Roy flatly. "He's just banged up. I have a kid to get home to, and I've already sacrificed enough of my day playing your little game. I did what was asked of me. I'm going home."

"Nightwing said the heat in the sub – " Wally begins, but Artemis interrupts him.

" – enough of your day?" she repeats incredulously. "You've sacrificed enough of your _day? _He's been down there for _three years, _Roy. You don't know a god damn thing about sacrifice."

"Don't start," Roy snaps.

"Start _what?"_

"Lecturing me," he says, turning around to face her again. "You spend two years off playing Nightwing's spy games, letting everyone think you're dead, and you expect to come back here and tell me how to act?"

"Those 'spy games' just saved the planet," Artemis shoots back. "While you've been at home making tea and playing house, we've been risking everything to uncover and sabotage the plans of the most dangerous criminals on Earth, so before–"

" – tell that to Jade, I dare you," says Roy, taking a threatening step forward. "When you died, she abandoned Lian and everything else, went off on some bloody revenge spree and never came back out of the life, all because she thought – "

" – who are you kidding, Roy?" Artemis interrupts with a laugh. "You think she didn't know?"

He stares. Wally looks increasingly uncomfortable.

"She figured it out within weeks," Artemis continues, and on some sick level she looks pleased to see the way Roy can't keep the shock off his face. "She recognized Mom's old name and the moves Dad taught us, kept the secret to protect my life. You really think Kaldur would still be alive if he'd actually killed me?"

"But Jade – " Roy begins, then realizes he doesn't have an end to that sentence and stops.

"Jade was never going to stick around and play wife to you," says Artemis, staring him down. "You just don't want to admit it because you thought you could change her and you can't."

Roy is frozen somewhere between rage and despair. All this time he's been raising Lian on his own, struggling to make things work, running himself into the ground, and Jade's been using her "grief" as an excuse for her absence, her infrequent visits. He can't even process it, really, like the last three years are morphing into something he doesn't understand, some sort of bad dream he doesn't have the tools to interpret, and the only thing he can really grasp is that he's so much more alone than he ever understood.

"That's enough," says Wally quietly, stepping in between them and laying a hand on Artemis's shoulder.

"No," says Artemis, her eyes flashing. "No, it's not. I'm still waiting to hear his excuse for leaving Kaldur on the operating table."

"Come on, Arty, he has Lian," Wally murmurs as Roy bristles. "It's late, she needs her dad. Kaldur's in Di–Nightwing's hands now, there's nothing he can do anyway."

"Yes, there is," Artemis insists, looking beyond furious. "He can spend one more godforsaken hour away from his precious normal life and make sure Kaldur knows that when he got done saving the world, his best friend didn't walk away like it didn't fucking matter if he lived or died!"

Roy's head jerks up and his shoulders stiffen. He knows he should walk away at this point, that he needs to get home, but he can't. He's too angry. And that it's _Artemis _of all people lecturing him on loyalty, on his relationship with Kaldur…he can't hold himself back.

"Don't you _dare _try and put this on me," he growls, fists clenching. "I don't owe him a damn thing. Not after he abandoned me without so much as a goodbye, or an explanation, or even a clue that this was some kind of trick. He is _not _my best friend. Not anymore."

"Do you remember where you were three years ago?" Artemis demands. "The only thing you could think about was finding Speedy, even though it was more than likely he was dead."

"But he_ wasn't_ – "

" – that doesn't matter, Roy, you couldn't have known that, and it's not the point. The point is that when you were off chasing ghosts, failing to eat or sleep or answer your communicator, we all _tried _to be there for you but you wouldn't let us. Do you even know how many nights I came in here and found Kaldur sitting at the Cave mainframe, waiting for your signal to activate just so he'd know you weren't dead?"

Roy's stomach lurches.

"Maybe if you all hadn't given up on the mission – "

"It wasn't a mission," Artemis snaps. "It was your personal vendetta, and it consumed you. We didn't know what you'd do, what deals you'd make just to find him. There was no way we could bring you in on a plan this dangerous."

"Even when it involved sending _my_ best friend away for a matter of _years_?"

"Roy, where were you when Tula died?" Artemis asks bluntly.

The words hit Roy like a slap to the face.

"Artemis," Wally interjects. "Calm down. We don't – "

"Nicaragua," Roy interrupts, clenching his teeth. "Following up on a tip I got from a thug in – "

" – that wasn't a literal question," says Artemis heatedly. "I don't care where the hell on earth you were. You could have called. You could have radioed. You could have done _something _to let him know you still cared."

"He knew," Roy insists, defensive anger bubbling up inside him. "I didn't need to call, he knew I cared."

"Did he?" Artemis asks. "Are you sure? You want to know what he said to Nightwing when they first started cooking up this whole scheme? You want to know what it was that convinced us to let him do it?"

"Artemis…" says Wally warningly, but she ignores him.

"He told us he had 'nothing left to leave behind,'" she says, her lips curling in disgust. "Now look me in the eye and tell me, Roy, who abandoned who?"

Livid, Roy opens his mouth to shout, to yell, to _hurt _her for trying to pin this on him as though she understands anything, as though she knows the first goddamn thing about him and Kaldur and what happened to them all those years ago, but before he has a chance to start, a new voice cuts into the conversation with a sharp, displeased "Hey!"

As one, Roy, Artemis and Wally turn to see Nightwing standing in the hall, gloves stripped off and sleeves rolled back. He looks more tired than Roy has ever seen him.

"If you're not too busy making a scene to care, he's going to be all right," he tells them, then turns and disappears into the main med room (Roy can hear the new Robin give an excited shout).

Wally alone looks relieved; Artemis seems to preoccupied with her anger to let it go just yet, and Roy is past caring about any of it at this point.

"Well there you go," he tells Artemis, turning towards the zeta tubes again. "I stayed."

Just as he steps into the transporter and feels it begin to engage, she speaks from behind him, her words the last thing he hears before he's whisked back to Star City:

"You sacrificed everything to find one man and you think that makes you a hero. He sacrificed everything to save everyone, and yet all you can think about is – "

But he's gone.

He steps out of the police box, too tired to care that appearing in costume will start rumors he's returned to fight crime again. He makes the short walk to the alley where he stashed his civilian clothes, changes quickly under cover of darkness, and begins the walk home.

To his surprise, there's only one missed call from the babysitter, and a voicemail that he listens to as he walks:

_Hey, Mr. Harper, it's Lindsay, just wanted to let you know that Lian's mom came by to spend some time with her so I left a little early because she said I could, I hope that's okay. Oh and she paid me. Hope your buddy's all right. Good night, see you next Tuesday!_

He cringes, remembering the excuse he cobbled together for his sudden departure, something about a friend's father's funeral, but it's the first part of her message that really gets him moving – what is Jade doing in his apartment on a night like this?

Twelve blocks later he's taking the porch steps two at a time, jamming his key into the lock and letting himself in as he smell of home washes over him – crayons, dishsoap and aftershave.

"Lian?" he calls, his voice ragged and frantic. He needs to see her. After everything that's happened, he needs to see the one person who's never kept a secret from him, who's never betrayed him or left him behind. "Lian, babe, where are you?"

"Asleep, as she should be," replies Jade, materializing in the dark doorway to Roy's study. She's in civilian clothes, jeans and a tank and one of his own overshirts, and she leans against the doorframe like she owns the room beyond, where Lian's crib is set up. "It's past midnight, Red."

"Yeah well it's been a hell of a day, so you can just lay off and clear out, all right?"

(He wants to say something much harsher than this, but he knows firstly that he can't make her leave if she doesn't want to, and secondly that he owes her, for coming to watch over Lian when he couldn't.)

"Oh I know," she says, pulling the door shut behind her. "It's been a hell of a day for the whole world. Your friends really know how to deliver a show, don't they?"

"They're not my friends," says Roy, tossing his duffel bag aside as he moves around the couch to sink down on it. He's never felt more exhausted. "If there's one thing I gathered today, it's that. Where were you in all this, anyway?"

"Away from the action," Jade replies. "I'm not really fond of choosing sides, as you know, and I had a feeling you'd be out with the Do Good Club, so I dropped by to keep an eye on Lian. You're welcome."

He rubs his face with his hands, wondering how the hell he's going to explain his injuries to the guys at work. Bar fight? No, nobody gets burned, cut _and _bruised at a bar fight. He'll have to do better.

"She okay?" he asks.

"She's fine," Jade nods. "Learned a new word from you today, apparently. Don't worry, I told her to save it for Auntie Dinah."

"Shit," Roy mutters. So she _did _hear him cursing. God, it feels like weeks ago that he was buckling her into her carseat, but it hasn't even been a day. He can't process it. Too much has happened. He's learned too much.

There's a silence, then Jade speaks again.

"Fish boy come out okay?" she asks.

"What do you care?" snaps Roy. Even if Jade did know that Kaldur was playing Manta this whole time, it shouldn't make a difference to her in theory, and he's really done with the subject at the moment.

"He looked out for Artemis," Jade shrugs, folding her arms over her chest. "Actually busted me out of a few fight spots, too, come to think of it, though I think that was more because – "

" – I don't want to hear it," he interrupts. She falls silent, and he is too for a moment, staring at the carpet at the faded stain where Lian accidentally spilled her grape juice last month and he never really could get it clean. Finally he turns and looks at her, his voice quiet because he doesn't have enough energy to be angry anymore.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asks.

"Lian needed her father," she said simply. "Someone to be _her _hero. Not everyone's. I couldn't risk you picking up the bow again."

"Right," he says bitterly, looking back at the carpet.

"It's over, Red," says Jade. She moves behind the couch, running a hand over his back as she reaches the front door and slips her shoes back on. "Let it go. Maybe you're a lousy hero, maybe you're a terrible friend. But you're a good father, and that's all you need to be right now."

"Where are you going?" he asks. Frustrated as he is, he doesn't want to be alone right now. Not when he knows how alone he's actually been all this time.

"To see Sis see Mom," she says, and disappears.

The door shuts and Roy closes his eyes, trying to focus on how tired he feels so he doesn't have to think about the thousand much less pleasant feelings running through his system. He stands up, moving to the bathroom so he can strip down to his boxers and brush his teeth, then pulls his pajama shirt over his head and slips around the corner and into the study, where Lian is sound asleep, her little fist curled tightly around the arm of the threadbare stuffed rabbit Ollie gave her for her first birthday. Jade was right. She is fine.

For a moment Roy just stands there, watching his daughter in the dim light and wondering if she has any idea just how messed up her family is, how messed up her _father _is. But when his own eyelids begin to droop, he bends down to press a kiss to the top of her head, whispers his good-night and retreats to his own bed. As he falls rapidly asleep, the sound he processes is not the siren wailing its way down Sixth Avenue – it's Artemis's hissed question, the one he never got a chance to answer: who abandoned who?


	3. Three

Over the next 24 hours, Roy makes a concentrated effort to have a normal day.

Lian wakes him up at an hour that feels ungodly but probably isn't all that bad; he's just exhausted in too many ways. He supposes he should be grateful that she's not crying all night like she used to, back when she missed Jade so badly that nothing he did could calm her – it's only seven thirty when she comes into his room with her familiar cry of "dada, dada," asking for "breakfrast" (where the extra r came from, he'll never know). Still, he can't help but look forward to those mythical years when he'll have to force her _out _of bed instead of into it.

He makes her an egg on toast and cuts up a peach to go with it as she chatters about what she and Mommy did the night before. Some of the syllables are nonsense, but she's remarkably verbal for her age, and her excitable up-and-down cadences bring a smile to his face, even when he can't understand what she's trying to say.

"You hurt your arm," she says suddenly, the statement seamlessly dovetailed onto the end of something unrelated. He looks down.

"Yeah," he admits, observing the stitches, as well as the various other bruises and burns mottling his arms at the moment. "Daddy had a rough day at work yesterday, that's why Mommy had to come by. But everything's gonna be fine, all right? It's nothing you should worry about."

"Okay," says Lian, poking at her egg (the peach is long-since devoured). "When does Mommy come again?"

Roy sighs.

"I don't know, babe," he says as he slides two eggs onto his own plate and sits down opposite her, toast in hand. "I don't even think Mommy knows, to be honest."

He hates the look on Lian's face whenever they have this conversation. It's some unstomachable combination of confusion and sadness, like she can't understand why all the other boys and girls at day care have mommies who see them every day and brush their hair in the morning and make them cute boxed lunches, but she doesn't. He never knows what to say.

"I'm sorry," he tells her quietly. "I'm sure she'll visit again soon."

It's a lie, and Lian doesn't dignify it with a response, just bites into her toast and stays silent for the rest of breakfast.

He takes her to day care, a leather jacket slung over his battered arms to keep the other kids' moms from asking questions, then heads in to work, where the reports from last night's cash delivery are waiting on his desk. Everything went smoothly. Secretly, Roy wishes it hadn't – he could use a crisis on this side of life to hold his attention there, which life almost procures, but not quite:

"What happened to your face, man?" asks one of his underlings, an easygoing security officer named Warren. He's been here since before Roy's time, and always takes his coffee break right at the beginning of the day.

"Bar fight," says Roy automatically, forgetting his intent not to use that excuse.

"Musta been one hell of a fight," says Warren. "Speaking of which, you see the news this morning? The bit with the Justice League and the big showdown over Iceland?"

"Don't usually watch it," says Roy, looking deliberately at the paperwork he's already completed. "TV news is a little gory for a three-year-old."

"Right, right," says Warren, sipping his coffee and nodding. "Well it's some crazy stuff, man. Apparently some nutjobs tried to start a space war or something, but our boys knew what they were up to and stopped them before they could beam the aliens here. All sounds like Star Trek mumbo jumbo to me but the footage is pretty intense. They say nearly every hero on earth was out there. Some people are even saying they saw Red Arrow last night and that guy hasn't been around for years now. Well, the two-armed version of him, anyway."

Roy doesn't even respond this time, just grunts and wishes Warren had the tact to take a hint and shut up. All the same, his coworker's story makes him realize that Ollie and Dinah were probably out there last night, and he hasn't called either one to check in. He's always kind of assumed that if anything happened to them, someone would tell him, but after yesterday he's lost all faith in anyone's intent to tell him anything, ever.

"I need to make a call," he tells Warren, setting his paperwork down on his desk.

"All right," says the guard, shrugging and topping off his coffee before he steps out of Roy's office and closes the door behind him. When he's gone, Roy picks up the phone.

Dinah's number is one of the few he knows by heart. As he waits for her to pick up, he walks to the window and peers out the blinds, looking out over the flat grey space of the parking lot. The life he leads now is unglamorous and predictable, but stable, which is a new thing for him. Even after two years he's not completely used to it._ For Lian, _he tells himself. _She needs this. _

"Hey," he says when he hears the line go active. "It's Roy."

"I've been waiting for this call," says Dinah's voice, sounding almost amused. "You're usually faster with these things. We're both fine. You can stop worrying."

"I wasn't worrying," says Roy defensively. "I just wanted to…check in."

"Sure you did, boyo," Dinah replies. "I hear you had your own little adventure yesterday. Not too rusty, I hope?"

"It was just a favor," says Roy, turning away from the window. "Don't get any ideas. I'm not going back to that life."

"I wasn't trying to imply that you were," says Dinah. "You know Ollie and I support the choices you've made, one hundred percent. So…how are you handling the news?"

"What news?"

"You know what I'm talking about, Roy," says Dinah seriously. "About your friends."

They're limited on the phone; he knows that. They can never know when someone might be standing near the door and overhear something condemning, so they're careful with specifics. While on some level Roy is glad that they can't have an actual conversation about this right now, he knows if he shuts her down outright she'll come track him down later, and that's the last thing he needs, so he aims for vague honesty.

"Ignoring it, for the most part," he says. "That stuff isn't my business anymore. My _friends _can handle it themselves."

"Roy, if you need to talk…"

"I don't," he snaps. "I did what they asked. I have a life now. A normal life. And I'm not going to mess it up on behalf of a bunch of people who lied to my face for years."

"Okay," says Dinah softly. "Okay. I understand. I'm still here, though. If you change your mind."

"Sorry," says Roy. "I didn't mean to get short with you. It's not your fault, you didn't know either. …Right?"

The last word is tacked on as he's struck by the sudden horror that even _Dinah, _practically his _mother, _could have known about everything and kept it from him, and he would never have known.

"Of course not," says Dinah (and Roy feels a perverse relief flood through him). "None of us knew. Those four played it close to the chest, from what I understand."

Those four. Statistically speaking, given a group of four random people somewhere in the world, Roy will probably not be one of them. But these aren't four random people. These are (were) his three best friends and his ex-sister-in-law, people who he's known for years, people who he's laughed with, cried with, fought beside, all for them to turn around and…

Before he can get angry about it all over again, he takes a deep breath and focuses back on the phone call.

"Listen, I'm at work, so I have to go," he says. "I'll bring Lian by sometime this week, she's been whining about not seeing you. Thursday okay?"

"Thursday's great," says Dinah. As usual, she manages to sound like she's listening to what's going on in Roy's head, not just what's coming out of his mouth.

"All right, we'll be there for dinner," says Roy, leaning over to mark it on his calendar. "I'll bring…something. I know you hate my cooking."

"It's fear, not hate," Dinah teases. "I'll see you then. Get back to work, slacker."

He smiles and hangs up the phone, grateful she hasn't tried to force anything more out of him. Better just to forget about it, he tells himself. He has plenty to worry about without adding in things he's gotten over years ago.

But as the day wears on, he finds it's not quite that easy. He checks the surveillance cameras, orders a replacement holster for a guard whose gun has been sticking, runs a closed-circuit test of the silent alarm to make sure it's in order, but all the while, his brain keeps trickling back to his fight with Artemis and everything that comes with it.

Perhaps it's because somewhere in the vast sea of anger he's ignoring, there's also a spark of doubt. For the last three and a half years, Roy has understood the situation to be thus: while he was away seeking Speedy (an endeavor the others had all abandoned in the face of more glamorous, straightforward missions), the team had experienced its first casualty with the death of Aquagirl, and in grief and rage and probably self-loathing, Aqualad had resigned as leader and disappeared, soon to resurface as Black Manta II. In Roy's mind, all these things happened in quick succession. He couldn't possibly have made it back from Nicaragua in time to see Kaldur, to change his mind about anything, to express what a bleak place the world would seem if he, of all people, fell from grace.

But then again, Roy didn't even _try_. He'd been keeping radio silence to hide his position from the cultists on whom he'd been snooping, and Tula's death hadn't seemed a good enough reason to break it, so he'd just assumed Kaldur would understand and carried on. On the one hand, Roy wants to be angry that Kaldur had so little faith as to assume his absence meant he didn't care – after all they'd been through, how could he think such a thing?

_Because you never told him, _his brain helpfully supplies. Honesty, especially kind honesty, has never been Roy's strong suit. And then of course on the other hand, there's the glaring truth that his swift (albeit outraged and stricken) acceptance of Kaldur's new identity probably says something less than flattering about his own faith in Kaldur. Truth be told, Roy's been so used to feeling like the victim in all of this, let down by the team, betrayed by his own best friend, that to think he might be even a little bit responsible for what's happened…it's beyond distracting.

And then there are Kaldur's words, the only ones he said through their entire ordeal yesterday: "You shouldn't have come."

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

When five o'clock arrives, Roy locks up his office and gets in his car and goes to pick up Lian at day care. She's traded in the lost cat book for a new one, some crap about a fish with shiny scales that she probably only picked out because the illustrations actually use shiny paper for the scales, but it seems to make her happy so he doesn't say anything. Buckling her into the carseat, he starts the drive home to the sound of her pleased humming.

Dinner is a quiet affair, macaroni and cheese with carrots on the side. Roy's never been a huge fan of the combination, but carrots are Lian's favorite vegetable (meaning the only one she'll eat without a fuss) and macaroni is one of the few things he can make without setting something on fire, so it's a winner in his book. Domestic life does not come naturally to him. But as with everything that came before it, he applies himself, works harder, and makes do.

"Can we movie?" asks Lian after dinner, looking up from her umpteenth "reading" of the fish-book.

"We don't have any new ones, but if you want to watch one of our old ones, sure," says Roy. He's arm-deep in suds as he washes the dishes – fake cheese is a bitch to clean. Frankly, a movie sounds great. Any kind of distraction sounds great.

Lian climbs down from her chair and walks clumsily to the bookcase, where her movies fill the bottom shelf, tales of adventure from several decades. Most of them are gifts from Ollie, though a few Roy purchased himself, and there's the odd birthday present from Wally or Nightwing. After a moment's hesitation, she pulls an old favorite off the shelf – Robin Hood. (Ollie, troll that he is, told her it was her Daddy's favorite, and it's been hers too ever since, though she has little idea of its significance to them.)

"Again?" Roy asks skeptically, but shrugs and accepts her decision.

They settle in to watch, Lian singing along tunelessly to the music as she cuddles up to Roy's side, his large arm around her little shoulders. Getting lost in this world of merry bears and feisty foxes isn't as easy as it was the first time they watched it, though, and Roy is getting to the point where he realizes that trying to ignore the hole his past has ripped in his present isn't going to work. So when it's over, he supervises Lian's teeth-brushing, helps her into her pajamas, tucks her into bed with a truncated bedtime story, and picks up the phone.

He isn't sure the number he has on file for Nightwing is still accurate but he tries it anyway, and after several rings someone picks up.

"Harper," says Roy to identify himself, not feeling like he's on first-name terms with any of them at the moment (not that he's ever been on first-name terms with Nightwing, who after all this time still hasn't told Roy who he really is).

"Hey, Roy," says Nightwing, sounding tired. "What's up?"

"I want to talk to you."

"All right," says Nightwing. "Talk."

"Face to face," says Roy. "Unless you're too busy saving the world for that."

"Did that yesterday," Nightwing replies. "Did you mean now? I'm in Gotham, it'll take me a little while to get to a zeta."

"No," says Roy. "Tomorrow's my day off. I'll drop by the Cave."

"Okay," Nightwing agrees. "Bring Lian, too. M'gann will be happy to see her."

Roy has a feeling Nightwing only suggested this because he knows Roy's short on cash and childcare is expensive, but he doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth, just grunts his assent. They work out the details and hang up, leaving Roy with an empty night that he spends making meaningless lists of things, groceries and shopping and things to ask Dinah about normal small girl behaviors because he sure as hell doesn't know what he's doing. He stays up long enough to ensure he won't spend any time lying awake in bed. Then he sleeps.

* * *

Their arrival at the Cave is heralded by the computer's now-familiar announcement. _Recognized: Roy Harper, R-01; Lian Harper, F-04. _Whether he's proud or ashamed that he's the first hero to have a "retiree" zeta ID is something Roy hasn't quite decided.

Lian, of course, is excited. She's been to the Cave only two times before but both visits involved good food and more importantly a lot of attention, so she remembers them pretty well. As they enter the central chamber, M'gann appears on the upper landing and calls out excitedly to Lian, who lets go of Roy's hand to wave. Soon the two are united on the training floor.

"She's getting so big!" M'gann exclaims delightedly to Roy, crouching beside his daughter and wrapping her up in a tight hug. Her next words she directs at Lian herself: "I missed you, you beautiful troublemaker."

"No troublemaking today though, right, babe?" says Roy. He gives her a stern look that's met with a giggle as M'gann ruffles her now-dark hair (the initial red lasted only a few months before it slowly changed to her mother's black). "Play nice with Megan and Garfield."

As if on cue, the younger boy appears in the opposite hallway and quickly morphs into a green kangaroo, bounding over to Lian, who shrieks elatedly and throws her arms around his legs – she loves this game.

"Nightwing around somewhere?" Roy asks M'gann as Lian claps for Gar's rapid shapeshifting, kangaroo to elephant to bunny to monkey and back to monkey-boy.

"He's upstairs, in the med lab," the Martian replies, lifting a finger to her temple. "I'll call him."

Her eyes glow briefly. By the time Garfield has turned tiger and begun to nuzzle Lian's shoulder, the acrobat has appeared on the landing up above, though Roy has a feeling Nightwing knew exactly when he got there. There isn't a lot that escapes Nightwing's notice.

"We were thinking of going out to the beach," says M'gann, laying a hand on Gar's green-furred back. "Just beep us when you need her back, okay?"

"Will do," Roy nods as he locks eyes with Nightwing from across the room. "Thanks for looking after her."

M'gann smiles.

"It's our pleasure."

With a nod, Roy heads up the stairs, towards the conversation he's not sure he wants to have anymore.

* * *

"How is he?" he forces himself to ask as he and Nightwing stand on the mountainside, perched on a little vantage point accessible from a door just off the medical wing. It's chilly outside, but if they stay in there's always a chance Conner will unintentionally overhear something. Superhearing is a curse as often as it's not.

"Better," says Nightwing, leaning against the railing. "Physically speaking, at least. He's eating again, and his body temperature is a lot more stable than it was yesterday. We think all the heat flux on the sub knocked his system out of whack."

"Right," says Roy, who can't bring himself to ask anything further.

There's a small silence, filled by the murmur of the waves on the distant beach, and the rush of the wind.

"I'm sorry about Artemis, the other day," says Nightwing quietly. Roy glances over at him but his face is unreadable, especially with the sunglasses. "She…they_…_have been through a lot together. She tends to get a little defensive where Kaldur is concerned."

"I noticed," says Roy, sliding his hands into his jacket pockets.

For a moment, Nightwing looks like he's considering saying something, then decides against it, looking out over the ocean instead.

"It wasn't a decision we made lightly," he says at last.

"Look, I'm not here to make you justify yourself, or to get into another argument," says Roy. "I just want to know what happened. I want the whole story, from you, not from some third party."

Nightwing nods, settling against the railing.

"I guess I owe you that, at the very least," he says. "For coming through when we needed you the other day. Where do you want me to start?"

"Aquagirl," says Roy. He almost thinks he sees Nightwing flinch, but the movement is so subtle and so quick he could easily have imagined it. "Start with the mission where she died."

"All right," Nightwing nods, taking a deep breath. Roy gets the feeling this isn't an easy topic for him, which is unusual for the typically unflappable acrobat. "Aquagirl – Tula – had only been on the team for about a month and a half when we got wind of a situation in the Aleutian Islands. Marine Corps sonar had picked up some kind of underwater structure that hadn't been there before, and we suspected the Light was up to something, so Batman sent us to investigate.

"I chose the team. We needed as many eyes underwater as possible, but the temperature and the pressure in those waters made that complicated. Miss Martian and Superboy were up for it, but Aqualad was away on business with Aquaman, and with Miss M and SB so fresh off their breakup I worried about their ability to work together effectively without a third party. Tula volunteered to join them. I accepted, and led the mission myself, from the Bioship."

"What about fish head?" Roy asks, forgetting Aquaman's new protégé's name.

"La'gaan wasn't part of the team yet," Nightwing replies. "With Kaldur gone, Tula was the only Atlantean we had."

"Right," Roy nods. "Go on."

"Shortly into the mission, we were found out," Nightwing continues. "The waters were mined, and when they detected our presence, they activated the minefield. After the first round of explosions, we lost contact with Aquagirl, and by the time we tracked her location a few miles out it was too late. She'd been caught in the blast, and bled to death before we could reach her. It's still not clear exactly what happened, but we recovered her body, brought her back to the Cave, and alerted the League."

"And Kaldur?"

"His mission had had its own complications," said Nightwing, frowning. "He and Aquaman had faced off against Black Manta, and the truth about his parentage had come out. He was already shaken enough when he came back to the Cave, but to come back to that news…a lot of us thought it was going to be too much for him. Batman took him off active duty and suggested he take some time for himself."

Roy is silent a moment, trying to determine exactly where he was at this point in time. He remembers learning about Tula's death in some seedy bar in Nicaragua, from a fifteen-second spot on news TV, sandwiched between riots in Jordan and some stupid personal interest story. She hadn't been a hero on land long enough to warrant anything more substantial, and Roy hadn't known her well enough to have any real personal reaction to her death. Mostly he'd wondered how Kaldur was taking it, then assumed that he'd be fine in the end. Kaldur was always fine in the end.

"Whose idea was it?" Roy asks, wondering for the umpteenth time why he didn't even turn on his comm to give Kaldur a chance to contact him, or at least to let him know where he was. "The undercover scheme."

"Mine, originally," says Nightwing. "We had discussed the need for better intelligence collection, and I'd suggested trying to get someone on the inside. But I'd never dreamed it would be him that went under."

"Until he suggested it himself," Roy guesses, and the other hero nods.

"It was about a week after Tula's death," Nightwing says. "He radioed me in the middle of the night and asked if we could talk in private. We met in Blüdhaven. I objected, initially, because I thought his departure might unravel the team, but…he convinced me it was our best chance at stopping the Light, and I couldn't deny he was right. The next night we brought Wally and Artemis in to witness the plan, and he was gone a day later."

"Why?" Roy asks. "Why did you need Wally and Artemis there?"

He tells himself it's an honest question and not a bitter one, but even he's not sure.

"In case something happened to me," Nightwing replies, his voice strangely even. "If I died, they would inform Batman of the situation. Every time I met with Kaldur I entered whatever information he'd gathered into a protected data stick that automatically synced with one I'd given Wally. That way we never risked losing the progress he'd made, and we ensured that when his job was finished he had credible witnesses to attest to his true allegiance. It also stopped them coming back into the field to confront him. I didn't want them to worry."

"Why not tell M'gann and Conner too, then?" asks Roy. "From what I hear, Superboy had a pretty hard time dealing with the whole thing."

"For the same reason we didn't tell you," says Nightwing. "They were unstable and unpredictable at the time. We didn't have full faith that they could keep the secret, and for Kaldur that was a matter of life and death. We couldn't take the chance."

"I wouldn't have spilled," Roy objects, hands slipping out of his pockets to form fists. It's like he's been waiting this whole conversation for something to be angry about, and the feeling is rising rapidly through him.

"Maybe not, but I wasn't about to bet Kaldur's life on it," says Nightwing flatly. "Not with the company you were keeping."

Roy's rage slips away faster than he can hold onto it.

"You knew, even then?" he asks, averting his eyes.

"I knew," Nightwing confirms. "Jade may have helped us out on occasion, but she's still a criminal. Still a member of the League of Shadows. That kind of information would have been far too valuable for her to resist peddling. I know you said you weren't here for me to justify myself, so I won't preach, but you didn't leave us a lot of options, Roy. Even Kaldur agreed."

Roy starts.

"You discussed it?"

"Of course we discussed it," says Nightwing, giving him a look. "You were his best friend. He spent half his spare time tracing your comm to make sure you weren't dead. But after a while it got pretty clear that you weren't intending to come back, and well…you know him. It wasn't an easy choice, but both of us knew what had to be done, and he was in a position to do it, so we went ahead with the plan. He didn't like leaving while you were involved with her or any of the other things you were doing. But he didn't see an alternative."

"Right," Roy says after a moment, processing that. "And…is it true, what Artemis said? About having nothing left to leave behind?'"

"He said something to that effect, yes," says Nightwing, looking away, out over the water. "Look, don't…don't take that on yourself, Roy. He was in a bad place when he said that. I don't think he really meant it."

"Kaldur doesn't say things he doesn't mean."

There's a silence, which Roy takes as acknowledgement that he's right.

"He…asked me to look after you," Nightwing says at last, still not meeting Roy's eyes. "I didn't do a very good job of that. I'm sorry."

Truth be told, Roy doesn't really know if he should be more offended at the subtle dig at his life choices, or at the fact that Nightwing really did do a shitty job of keeping tabs on him, if that was what was supposed to happen. He's not sure it's fair to be angry, though. After all, he did make it pretty damn hard for them to get through to him, especially after Kaldur left.

"It's fine," he says eventually, instead of any number of things he could. "All's well that ends well, I guess."

Nightwing laughs humorlessly.

"Yeah, that's not really how that works."

"No," Roy agrees. "No, it's not."

With a sigh, Nightwing straightens up off the railing and looks back to him, adjusting his sunglasses. He looks tired. He's looked tired for a while now, now that Roy thinks about it.

"Anything else you wanted to know?" he asks.

"Don't think so," says Roy, putting his hands back in his pockets. "Well…maybe one thing."

"Shoot."

"What's going to happen to him, now?" Roy asks, leaning against the railing. "Where's he going to go?"

Nightwing shrugs.

"We're still working on that," he says quietly. "It's…complicated."

Roy grunts.

"I bet."

"Do you want to see him?"

The question catches Roy off guard, and the "no" is almost out of his mouth before he realizes he actually does. Slowly, he nods.

"Want me to come with?" asks Nightwing.

"No," says Roy, and doesn't say why, in part because he's not really sure. It just feels like something he needs to do on his own. Nightwing doesn't seem to take offense, in any case, just nods and fiddles with his sunglasses once more. Brushing past him, Roy heads for the door inside, when suddenly the younger hero's hand closes on his arm, stopping him.

"Roy," Nightwing says, strangely fidgety. "This is way overdue, but...I know you've been through a lot, and maybe I haven't been the best friend to you, but I feel like you're entitled to know..."

And then to Roy's astonishment, he takes off his glasses.

It shouldn't make that much of a difference, but it does. Nightwing has a handsome face, almost boyish but not quite, with sharp blue eyes that reflect the sharp mind Roy knows lies beyond. But it's more than the sight of his face that takes Roy aback. It's the fact that after nine years, he's chosen _this _moment to reveal his true identity, a moment when Roy feels so exposed and vulnerable himself. On some level, it almost makes them feel like equals. Almost.

"My name's Dick," says Nightwing, fiddling with his glasses uncomfortably, as if it's a contradiction to his natural state to have them in his hands instead of covering his eyes. "Dick Grayson."

The name is vaguely familiar, though Roy can't place it.

"Uh…all right," says Roy. He's not sure what he's supposed to do with that information. Do you shake hands with someone whose name you just learned, even if you've known them for nearly a decade? That just seems awkward.

"He's in the gamma rest room," says Dick after a strained pause, sparing him the decision. "Fourth door on the left."

Nodding his thanks, Roy takes one last look at his friend's true face, then turns and heads inside, counting doors. The fourth is ajar, and he hesitates before pushing it further open, trying to convince himself this is a bad idea, since it would really be simpler just to forget any of this ever happened and go back to his normal life with Lian and the bank and the bills. But after everything Nightwing told him, he's not sure he can do that.

Kaldur is asleep. Propped up against a stack of pillows, he lies covered by a thin blanket, his right leg elevated by a pulley system. The left side of his face is a mess; Nightwing may have picked the visor shards out of his skin, but the incisions remain, marring his face from just above the eyebrow down to the sharp jut of his cheekbone. Various machines beep gently as they report his pulse, his temperature, his breath rate. All are stable.

For a moment, Roy is brought back to all the times he woke up in a bed like that, pieced back together and brought back from the brink of his own foolishness by the magic of medicine. More than once, his awakening was greeted by the sight of Kaldur's concerned face, or perhaps by the sound of the Atlantean's slow breathing as he slept upright in a nearby chair, still in his combat uniform, his own scrapes and bruises untreated.

And then he remembers the first time Kaldur _wasn't _there, the morning he woke up in a hospital bed after a bad patrol to find Dinah sitting beside him, her face reading bad news before she could even spoke. _We don't want to believe it, _she'd said. _But it's looking like the truth. I'm sorry, Roy. We never thought he, of all people…_

And all Roy had been able to think about was that the last time he and Kaldur had talked, they'd fought about Jade and her allegiances, an irony in which he'd taken vindictive comfort.

Now, with the whole picture in hand, that feeling seems unspeakably shallow.

_Damn you, _Roy thinks suddenly, a rush of bitterness coursing through him as he watches the steady rise and fall of Kaldur's chest from the doorway. He wants to believe he doesn't care. He wants to believe he can turn around and walk out the door and pretend he doesn't know this half-destroyed man, or at least convince himself that he doesn't owe him anything, but at the moment the best he can do is to tell himself that he owes Lian better than to dredge up his past just to placate his conscience. She needs him. Maybe Kaldur does, too, but she comes first. That's the end of it. It has to be.

Right?

He lingers in the doorway for a moment longer, unsure if he's hoping Kaldur will wake up, or praying he won't. Before he can make up his mind, he slips out the door, pulling it shut behind him, and descends the stairs back towards the main Cave, and his daughter. It's time to go home.


	4. Four

"You look like crap, Roy," Dinah informs him the instant Ollie has whisked Lian out of earshot, off to build a castle out of blocks or play embarrassing pretend games, no doubt. "And I'm not just talking about your injuries."

"Thanks," Roy mutters sarcastically, plopping back onto his chair. They've just finished washing up after Thursday dinner, and while he's known this moment was coming since he rang the doorbell, he's always still somehow surprised at Dinah's ability to call him out.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks, leaning over her own chair.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not if you're going to be reasonable about it."

And she's got him there. If he doesn't get some of this stuff off his chest soon, he's going to lose it. Or maybe he already has. With a sigh, he leans back, folding his arms over his chest and trying to figure out where to start.

"I hear you had a chat with Nightwing the other day," Dinah offers, pulling out her chair and taking a seat opposite him. "How was that?"

"Informative," he says, after a moment. "He's...a lot more like Bats than I'd thought."

"I was afraid of that," Dinah nods with a sigh. Roy cocks his head curiously but doesn't ask.

"I guess there were a lot of things I thought I understood that I didn't," he continues, drumming his fingers against his arm. "I don't know how much you know about the whole situation, but..."

"Nightwing debriefed the League," says Dinah, filling in his hesitation. "I know about the plan he and Aqualad made, and about some of the complications they ran into in the middle of things. He didn't get into a whole lot of detail, but I expect I know about as much as you do at this point."

"Yeah, well," Roy sighs. "That's not saying much."

"Probably not," says Dinah, then pauses as if considering her words carefully. "But...do you really wish they'd kept you in the loop?"

He glances up at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Think about the last three years, Roy," says Dinah seriously. "What would you have done differently if you'd known? What would you have been _able _to do?"

"Something, at least," says Roy, frowning. "And even if I hadn't been able to do anything to help them, I don't see how it helped anyone to have me think Kald...Aqualad had turned like that. I didn't exactly take that news well, as you might remember."

"I do."

And how could she not? She was the one who'd set him straight and gotten him clean after that particular breakdown. Roy feels a familiar, embittered embarrassment flit through him, but he's got enough to think about without reliving all of that, too, so he sets it aside and goes on.

"I guess I just feel like...I...I thought he...I thought we were closer than that," he says, voice quieter now. "I thought he trusted me more than that."

Dinah doesn't reply, just watches him, waiting for him to go on.

"And even if it _was_ fair, to decide not to tell me while I was still in bed with Jade, uh, so to speak," he continues, "Artemis said Jade figured it all out a few weeks after her 'death.' So at that point, they were all keeping it from me just...because."

He shakes his head, brow furrowing as he remembers those days, Paula's grief and Ollie's guilt and his own disgusted disbelief at what his best friend had become.

"Maybe they wanted you to have a normal life," Dinah suggests gently.

"What?"

"You had finally found Speedy. Jade had left you with Lian and disappeared, for the most part. Things were settling down for you," she says. "You had made it clear to everyone you were leaving the hero gig, at least for a while. Maybe they were just trying to respect your decision."

"They couldn't even give me the courtesy of the basics, though? Not even a phone call, 'hey, Roy, by the way, Artemis isn't dead and Kaldur isn't evil, you can stop questioning if anything in life is permanent or meaningful now?'"

Dinah raises an eyebrow at his joke, if it can be called a joke.

"Roy, don't take this the wrong way," she says, "but I doubt anyone thought it mattered to you all that much. Yes, you took the initial news badly, but not many people outside me and Ollie knew that. And after that you did a pretty darn good job pretending not to care. Nightwing and the others probably just assumed that you didn't."

"He was my best friend," Roy protests. "How could they think I didn't care?"

Dinah looks at him across the table.

"You don't always show you care in the ways people expect," she says quietly.

Her words are delicately chosen, but he can sense the harsher meaning beneath them and the truth of it all stings something fierce.

"Kaldur would have known," he says, his last, feeble objection. "He would have known I cared."

Dinah sighs.

"Yes, well, I imagine he had a few other things on his mind at the time."

Roy stares at the table, struck once again by the magnitude of his friends' scheme. _Three years. _How could anyone live a false life for three years without being detected? How could they trick even their closest allies into trusting the lie? And more to the point, how could anyone – most of all Roy – have _ever_ believed that someone as good as Kaldur could have turned from the light? Shame washes over him, shame that previously his anger had kept at bay, but he's had a hard time holding onto his anger since his visit to the Cave. How could he have accepted the news so quickly, and with so little question?

Dinah seems to sense his humiliation and reaches out to lay a hand on his arm.

"It was a particularly dark time for you, then," she says softly. "You didn't know what to believe about the world, or about yourself. It was just one more surprise. One more person you saw abandoning you. You weren't in a place to think straight about any of it. What's important is that you're both safe. We're all safe. You, me, Ollie. Artemis. Kaldur. Lian."

Lian.

Roy looks up, nods slowly, trying to accept that whatever has already come to pass is done, that all he can do is go back to his life with his daughter and do right by her, but he can't quite believe it because there is one question still hanging over all this complicated business, which he voices:

"Where do you think he going to go?"

Dinah shrugs.

"I spoke briefly with Aquaman about it, at the Watchtower," she says. "After we all heard the news. I think he's still processing it himself, but he said that he doesn't believe Kaldur can return to Atlantis for the time being. That it wouldn't be safe."

"What's 'the time being?'" Roy asks. "Are we talking a few weeks to jump through some bureaucratic hoops, or..."

"More like years," says Dinah flatly.

"Oh."

Roy chews on his lip. He tries (as he has tried for days now) not to think the thought that's begging to be thought.

"I'm sure Nightwing will provide him with the means to start a life on the surface," Dinah continues. "From what I understand, money isn't a concern, and Kaldur is very capable. He could hold any number of jobs here. Picking the hero mantle back up might be...complicated, but he might also be able to do that, though I'm not sure he'd want to after all this. He might just want some time to relax."

"We both know he's going to need more than a place to live," Roy mutters, rubbing his temple. "He's been to hell and back. I doubt he can just find a flat and 'relax' after all that."

"There are plenty of people who could look after him until he's healed."

"I'm not really talking about the physical injuries."

When Dinah doesn't reply for a moment, he looks up to see why, and finds that she's looking at him with a strange look in her eyes, her head cocked slightly to one side.

"What?"

"Fatherhood has changed you," she remarks.

He watches her warily.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You never used to believe in the kind of hurt that doesn't bleed."

Roy doesn't respond. He thinks it's a compliment but it's an uncomfortable one, tied up with past versions of himself he'd rather forget existed, and besides, it's not like he's ever been good with compliments. Mercifully, Dinah carries on:

"So, you're thinking about having Kaldur come stay with you while he recovers."

Roy's head jerks up.

"I didn't say that," he says sharply.

"Sorry. I was fast-forwarding," Dinah says, folding her arms neatly on the table. "Am I wrong?"

Staring determinedly at the wall behind her head, Roy grinds his jaw for a brief moment before he sags and sighs, pushing a hand through his hair. There's no point dancing around it. In a fight or a serious talk, Dinah will always be able to outmaneuver him.

"Maybe I am," he admits.

"What's your hang-up?" Dinah asks curiously. "Lian?"

Roy nods. In the brief silence between them, he listens carefully, and he can hear his daughter's laughter from the room down the hall, where Ollie is doubtlessly subjecting himself some humiliation for her entertainment. The sound puts him at ease like nothing – not even the drugs – ever did.

"She's never met him," he says, turning his attention back to Dinah. "I don't know how she'd take it."

"She'd adjust," Dinah shrugs. "I'm not pushing you to make one decision over any other, but if Kaldur is anything like the man he was when he left us, I think she'd warm to him quickly enough."

"Well that's the thing," Roy sighs. "I have no idea if he _is_ the same person. A lot has changed. I know I'm not the same at all, and inviting a stranger into the house is a gamble I'm not sure I'm willing to take, even if that stranger used to be my best friend."

"Well, have you talked to him?" asks Dinah.

"No," says Roy, just as another shriek of laughter sounds from the next room. "Not yet."

"I'd say that's a good starting point," Dinah tells him, and rises from her chair. "Now, it sounds like they're having a little too much fun in there. What do you say we go and join them? You look like you could do with a laugh or two."

Roy snorts slightly and pushes up from the table.

"Yeah," he mutters as they head for the playroom. "Yeah, probably."

* * *

He doesn't get a chance to visit the Cave for another four days – Lian is a little bit sick, just some sniffles and a low fever, and he has to take a day off work to tend to her since the daycare has a pretty strict illness policy. To make up for it, he has to work on his usual day off, which further messes up his schedule, but at last on Monday he clocks in some morning hours and frees up the afternoon to zeta to Mt. Justice (it still always amazes him how quickly the Lanterns managed to restore the place after the Light – well, Kaldur – blew it up).

"Sorry to chat and run, but I need to be out of here by two," Nightwing tells him when he arrives. "Publicity thing in Gotham, need to be suave and media-savvy by 2:30 Central Time."

"Publicity thing?" Roy repeats confusedly. "As Nightwing?"

"Uh, no, as...you know," says Nightwing, glancing around. "You didn't do a whole lot with that name I gave you, did you?"

"No. Should I have?"

"Doesn't really matter," the acrobat dismisses. "Anyway, he's awake, if...if that's what you were here for."

"It is," says Roy. "Though I might want to talk to you briefly after."

"Well, if it's urgent, comm me, all right?"

"Deal," Roy nods. "Go be...suave. Or whatever."

"I specialize," says Nightwing, clapping him on the arm before striding into a zeta transporter and disappearing into the light. The Cave, it seems, is otherwise empty.

Roy takes a moment to look around and steel his nerve before he heads up the stairs, towards the medbay. The quiet is somehow unnerving, like Nightwing kicked everyone else out just so they could have some privacy, or maybe he's just reading way too much into this because it feels like the conversation he's about to have should be a bigger deal than it is.

The door to the gamma rest room is open, not just ajar. When Roy steps in, Kaldur is in much the same position he saw him last – lying in bed, leg elevated, eyes closed – but at the sound of footfalls on the metal floor, his eyes slide open. The right is grey-green and alert as ever; the left is a tad cloudier, the skin around it still littered with scabs and scars from the broken visor glass.

"Uh...sorry," Roy says hesitantly. "Nightwing said you were awake."

"I am," says Kaldur, moving his hand to flick a switch by his side. Slowly, the machine holding his broken leg up begins to lower it. "And I was before you came in. Do not apologize. You look well."

"Thanks," Roy murmurs. "You uh...look..."

"...half alive," Kaldur fills in with the hint of a wry smile. "I am aware. My compliment was not a formality; you did not need to return it."

_What _isn't _a formality with you? _Roy wants to ask, but doesn't.

"It's not that bad," he shrugs instead, shoving his hands into his pockets. "You look a lot better than when we first pulled you out of the bay, at least."

"I do not doubt it," says Kaldur. "Thank you for that."

"Don't," Roy dismisses.

Silence falls awkwardly between them, until Kaldur shifts himself, maneuvering his legs over the edge of the bed as if he intends to stand.

"Um, what are you..."

(Roy doesn't want to ask, but it looks uncomfortable, and if he can help he will, but he has no idea what's going on. Come to think of it, that's a pretty good summary of their relationship at the moment.)

"I assume you would like to talk more than just to remark on my appearance," says Kaldur, reaching for a set of metal crutches resting against the wall by his bed. "And I am tired of this room. I was thinking the kitchen might better suit our needs."

"Do you want...uh..."

Roy trails off as Kaldur pushes himself jerkily to a standing position. In retrospect it was a dumb thought to offer help – it's not like Kaldur doesn't have upper body strength to spare, with his Atlantean physique and his years of combat training. But it's still strange to watch him move so gracelessly when Roy's memories of him are all poise and elegance, like swimming through air.

"I do not," says Kaldur, in response to the question Roy never did manage to ask. "If I move too slowly for your tastes, I will see you in the kitchen."

"That's not what I –" Roy protests, but bites his tongue and moves for the door instead of pursuing the topic further. He doesn't want to get into an argument before they even get past the pleasantries.

The walk down is tenser than Roy thought it would be. Kaldur does indeed move slowly, but it's not really the pace that puts Roy on edge, it's just that it's even weirder than he'd expected, being around him. There's something different about him and it's more than the fact that he's an inch taller and considerably more muscular and in possession of a lot more scars than Roy remembers. Even the fact that he can't figure it out is a problem – Roy never used to have trouble reading Kaldur.

They reach the kitchen and Kaldur sets about brewing a pot of tea.

"So," he says at least, when the kettle is on the stove. "I presume you have come with questions."

Roy, seated at the table, shrugs noncommittally.

"Not...uh, not really. More just wanted to check in, see how you were doing."

Kaldur gives him a strange look that is too fleeting to parse.

"It will be a number of weeks, perhaps months, before I can consider walking unaided. If that is what you were asking."

"I wasn't – I mean, I'm glad your leg is healing," says Roy, struggling for words. "They...feeding you okay around here?"

Kaldur leans against the counter.

"I do not go hungry."

"Probably beats whatever shit they were serving on that submarine, huh?" Roy jokes, but falls rapidly silent when he sees Kaldur staring at him, completely stone-faced. "Sorry."

Kaldur looks down and lays a hand against the side of the tea kettle, apparently deciding it's got a ways to go.

"How is Star City?" he asks, changing the topic smoothly. "I hear you are working at a bank there."

"Yeah," says Roy. "Um. It's pretty boring but, I got bills, groceries, rent. You know the drill."

Kaldur nods.

"And Speedy?" he asks. "How is he?"

"He uh, he actually goes by 'Arsenal' now," says Roy. "He's pretty actively pursuing the hero stuff. Does way more for Star City with one arm than I ever managed with two, embarrassingly enough. Our paths don't cross a whole lot. I've gotten the impression that he's kind of eager to put some distance between himself and his old life."

"That is understandable," says Kaldur, pulling a mug down from the cupboard. "Tea?"

"I'm good, thanks," says Roy, wondering if Kaldur remembers that he hates tea. They used to tease each other about it, but it's been a long time. Probably Kaldur's had more important things to remember. In any case, Roy doesn't mention it.

"Nightwing informed me when you found him," Kaldur continues. Roy assumes 'him' is Arsenal. "I was...surprised, to say the least."

"Yeah, I think everyone was," says Roy, shifting a little uncomfortably. "You all pretty much assumed he was dead."

He's careful to keep his tone neutral – he doesn't want Kaldur to think he's saying 'I told you so' or anything as petty as that. Once upon a time he would have, with great vindication, but he's gotten some perspective since then.

"I am sorry the quest fell to you alone, in the end," says Kaldur. He pours steaming water into his mug, one finger holding the tea bag in place. "I am sorry we did not have faith enough to pursue it with you."

"Kaldur..." Roy frowns. "This isn't what I came here to say."

"My apologies," says Kaldur, setting his tea down on the table opposite Roy and clumsily lowering himself into the seat. Again, Roy is struck by the urge to help, but is stopped by the sense that it would somehow be inappropriate to ask. "What is it you _did_ intend to say?"

"I...don't really know," says Roy. He internally curses himself for sounding so stupid, particularly when Kaldur, who has every right to be utterly delirious, is so collected.

If Kaldur is unimpressed, he doesn't show it, just picks up his tea and takes a sip. He seems to be waiting for Roy to go on.

"How long do you think you'll be staying in the Cave?" Roy manages to ask.

"I expect not much longer," says Kaldur. "As soon as there is no longer a medical necessity for me to be here, I will relocate. I believe my presence is...distressing to M'gann."

"Oh," says Roy, a little surprised. "Is she still...hung up on...uh, the plan?"

He doesn't know how else to describe Kaldur's stint as Black Manta II.

"No," says Kaldur. "I believe she carries guilt over her decision to gut my mind during the team's first infiltration of the Reach."

"To gut your mind?" Roy repeats. "What does that even mean?"

"It is fairly self-explanatory," says Kaldur, raising an eyebrow at Roy as he blows on his tea to cool it. "Believing me responsible for the capture and torture of La'gaan and the others – which to be fair, I was – she used her psychic powers to pull information from my mind in a particularly violent manner, leaving me in a semi-vegetative state for some time. In the process, she learned of the larger plan behind my actions, but it was too late to reverse the damage at the time. I recovered, for the most part, but...I am unsure she ever will."

"Wait, you were in a coma?" Roy asks incredulously. "For how long?"

He can feel his frustration rising back to the surface, anger at not being kept in the loop, at not mattering enough to be told things, but he tries to keep it hidden. Now isn't the time.

"Not a true coma," Kaldur corrects. "I had brief periods of consciousness, though I was not able to speak or form cohesive thoughts for several weeks. I had assumed Nightwing informed you of this when you spoke the other day. Did he not?"

"No," says Roy, frowning deeply. "We mostly talked about...what happened before. The stuff leading up to your decision to go under."

"You wanted to know why we did not bring you in on the plan."

Kaldur's statement is blunt, not a question or even a judgment, just a fact. All the same, it makes Roy feel damnably petty that he never got around to asking about any of the stuff that actually happened while Kaldur was undercover.

"Yeah," he mutters, fighting the urge to look down at the table, because Kaldur is staring across it at him with an unnervingly level gaze. "Yeah, I did."

"I knew you would be angry," says Kaldur quietly. "But I could not hold your anger equal to the lives of so many people."

"I know," says Roy, and he means it. He doesn't need (or want) to have this conversation yet again. "I get it."

Silence falls between them. Kaldur sips at his tea and watches Roy. Roy wonders if he should have had a cup of the nasty stuff just to have something to do with his hands because he has a horrible urge to fidget, just to ease the tension.

After a little while, Kaldur sets his mug down and leans back in his chair.

"Have you decided what it is you came here to say?" he asks finally.

Roy rubs his arm.

"Yeah, I guess," he says hesitantly. "I was...wondering. Where are you going, after this? What's the plan?"

"I do not have a definite one," Kaldur replies. "But this time in my life does not require as careful a design as the last. It hardly matters where I end up."

"Do you have any idea, though?" Roy asks, even as he registers a sense of disturbance at Kaldur's nonchalance. The way he's talking, it doesn't seem like it's a matter of not being worried, it's more like he just doesn't care.

"Wally and Artemis have extended an invitation," says Kaldur, shrugging.

Roy nods. That makes sense – Artemis understands what Kaldur's been through. She's been by his side this whole time, knows what he's had to do like no one else can. On the other hand...she's just come back, and Wally's been living this last year without her. And their university housing is hardly spacious.

"You...plan on taking them up?" Roy asks carefully.

Kaldur shrugs.

"It hardly matters," he repeats.

Roy frowns, drumming his fingers against the table.

"I..." he says hesitantly. "If you...decide that's not what you want...I...have an extra room."

That's not totally true, but he could turn his study into one without too much trouble.

"You are attempting to repay a debt that does not exist," says Kaldur calmly. "Our paths split, Roy. You never owed me anything, nor I you."

"Look, I'm not offering it because I'm trying to – "

"Is that so? Why are you here?"

"Because you're my friend, dammit, I – "

"Am I still?" Kaldur challenges, gaze piercing. "I do not think we have been friends under any but the most generous definition of the word for some years now. At present, I doubt you know me at all. I think you are here because you have allowed some combination of pity and misguided guilt to convince you that if you take what is left of me in, you can make peace with our past and ease your own conscience."

Roy stares, staggered by the accusation (and by its truth). Kaldur never used to be this direct.

"And?" he manages to ask, struggling to meet Kaldur's eyes. "So what if I am?"

"It is a waste of your energy," says Kaldur. "_I _am a waste of your energy. You have a life to attend to. A daughter to care for. I knew what I was forfeiting when I sought out my biological father, and I am prepared to face the consequences of my actions. I will not impose myself on you and your family."

"It's not a goddamn imposition," Roy mutters, indignant. "Jesus Christ."

"I do not think you understand what you are asking," Kaldur tells him. "You have chosen a simpler life. A clean, honest life. I have walked the opposite path – these years, I have seen and done things that would send a man to hang, and they have changed me for the worse. I am not the sort of person you wish to bring into your home, least of all when you have a young child, Roy."

"You did what you did because you had to," Roy argues. "That's not the same."

"Intent matters little," says Kaldur, shaking his head. "I am responsible for what I have done."

"What, saving the world?" Roy shoots back. "Look, I may not know everything that happened while you were down there, but I know _you_."

He holds his hand up as Kaldur opens his mouth to interrupt.

"No. Let me finish. I don't care if you think you've changed, I know who you were when you went down there, and if there's anyone in the world I'd trust to sit among the worst of the League's enemies and never even consider becoming one of them, to make only the sacrifices absolutely necessary to get the job done, it's you. Maybe you did bad things, but that doesn't make _you _bad. You saved millions, no, billions of lives, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you sit there and think that you're so fucking irredeemable that your very presence is going to turn my daughter into a goddamn supervillain."

Kaldur stares at him for a moment. He hasn't cracked so much as a facial expression since they began discussing the future.

"You are excitable as ever," he says at last. His tone makes it clear this isn't a compliment.

"And you haven't gotten any warmer," Roy shoots back.

The corners of Kaldur's lips curl up, but it isn't a smile.

"I will think about your offer," he says, struggling to his feet and reaching for his crutches. Once again, Roy fights the urge to help. "But if you will excuse me now, I believe M'gann and Garfield will be returning shortly, and I would prefer to avoid the fuss they will inevitably make if they find me out of bed."

Roy rises too. He has the feeling M'gann and Gar aren't the only reason Kaldur is in a hurry to end this conversation, but he doesn't pry. Instead he picks up Kaldur's mug and carries it to the dishwasher while the Atlantean slowly makes his way across the kitchen, crutches clicking with each step.

A moment later Roy falls into step beside him, and in silence they walk through the main chamber of the Cave until they reach the foot of the stairs that lead back up to the medbay. Just a few steps farther lie the zeta tubes that will take Roy back to Star City, but before he makes for them he turns and pauses.

"Kaldur," he says; the Atlantean has already turned to head for the stairs. Kaldur stops, looking back over his shoulder with one crutch on the first step, expression guarded. "I know things are complicated right now, and I'm sorry about a lot of things. But...I'm glad you made it through."

Kaldur smiles tightly and nods. Without saying a word, he turns away and clumsily mounts the first step, beginning the slow climb up to his room in the medbay.

Roy watches him for a moment, then turns away and heads for the zeta tubes. He can pick up Lian a little early from day care, maybe take her out for ice cream or get her the new shoes she's been needing for a few weeks now (why do children's feet grow so fast?).

He's said what he came here to say. The rest is in Kaldur's hands.


End file.
